Setup WordPress Multisite on Ubuntu 14.04.4 with Nigx

Setup WordPress Multisite on Ubuntu 14.04.4 with Nigx. In this tutorial you will learn how to install wordpress with Nigx on Ubuntu 14.04.4 server with Multisite enabled.
What we need:

• Ubuntu Server 14.04.4
• Putty software
• Root access

Tips: You can copy the code and paste it your Putty by simply right click your mouse inside the Putty window

Install and configure Nginx, MySql and PHP

apt-get update
apt-get install -y nginx mysql-server php5-fpm php5-mysql php5-curl php5-mcrypt php5-gd

You will be asked to enter password for SQL
Create folder where you will save WordPress files

mkdir /usr/share/nginx/wordpress

Remove symlink in the site-enabled directory

rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default

Create virtual host file inside site-available

nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/mywp

Paste this code:

server {
listen [::]:80 ipv6only=off;
server_name example.com *.example.com myshop.com;

root /usr/share/nginx/wordpress;
index index.php index.html index.htm;

location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args ;
}

location ~ /favicon.ico {
access_log off;
log_not_found off;
}

location ~ \.php$ {
try_files $uri /index.php;
include fastcgi_params;
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
}

access_log /var/log/nginx/$host-access.log;
error_log /var/log/nginx/wpms-error.log;
}

Save this file by pressing ctrl+o and exit ctrl+x
Create a symlink of this file inside site-enabled directory

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/mywp /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/mywp

Test your Nginx configuration and restart

service nginx configtest
service nginx restart

Create your MySQL Database and add a WordPress User

Login to the MySQL command line

mysql -u root -p

Create a database. In this tutorial we will create new user – user: demo password: yourpassword and grant permission to the database

CREATE DATABASE wordpress;
CREATE USER 'demo'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'yourpassword';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wordpress.* TO 'demo'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
exit

Installing WordPress

Download WordPress

wget http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz

Extract the file

tar -xf latest.tar.gz

Move the extracted files into Nginx directory

mv wordpress/* /usr/share/nginx/wordpress/

Assign ownership

chown -R www-data:www-data /usr/share/nginx/wordpress

Now go to your internet browser and open your website address (example.com).
You’ll be directed to a welcome page. Fill up the page and click Install WordPress

Select your language

 

Click Let’s go!

Here you need to enter you WordPress setup

Database Name: wordpress
Username: demo
Password: yourpassword
Database host: localhost
Table Prefix: wp_

**Click Submit button

 

Click Run the Install 

Enter the details of your website, you username and password that will be used to login to your WordPress

Click Install WordPress

Enable the WordPress Multi-site

This will allow you to have more than one website in a single WordPress. To make this happen, we have to enable the Multi-site function of the WordPress. Let’s start configuring the WordPress settings.
 
On your Putty again, type this:

nano /usr/share/nginx/wordpress/wp-config.php

 
Find this line “/* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */” at the bottom. Below this line, paste the following codes:

/* Multisite settings */
define( 'WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true );

#Save the file by pressing ctrl+o and exit ctrl+x

Go to your WordPress on browser and click Tools >> Network Setup. Please look at the picture below. We will copy these codes inside the blue box and green box and we will paste this in our server using Putty.

Now we need to go to Putty again and open the WordPress setting file

nano /usr/share/nginx/wordpress/wp-config.php

 
Find this line again (/* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */) Below this line we will paste the code from the web browser. Go back to you web browser and copy the codes inside the blue box (See picture above) and paste it to Putty.
Remember to change the SUBDOMAIN_INSTALL value to true

Save the file (ctrl+o) and exit (ctrl+x)
 
Next is to edit .htaccess

nano /usr/share/nginx/wordpress/.htaccess

On the web browser, copy the codes inside the green box shown in the picture below:

Paste it to you Putty. Save the .htaccess file (ctrl+o) and exit (ctrl+x)

Adding Domain Mapping Plugin manually

We have to download the plugin file and install it manually. On your Putty, enter this code one by one:

wget http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/wordpress-mu-domain-mapping.latest-stable.zip

apt-get install unzip

unzip wordpress-mu-domain-mapping.latest-stable.zip

mv wordpress-mu-domain-mapping /usr/share/nginx/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/

cp /usr/share/nginx/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-mu-domain-mapping/sunrise.php /usr/share/nginx/wordpress/wp-content/

 
Let’s edit the WordPress configuration again:

nano /usr/share/nginx/wordpress/wp-config.php

 
Find /* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */ and below this line, add the following code:

define('SUNRISE', 'on');

 
ACTIVATING THE PLUGINS
On your web browser, click the My Sites >> Network Admin >> Plugins

Find WordPress MU Domain Mapping and click Network Activate

Go to Settings >> Domain Mapping and make changes to the Domain Options:

On you Putty

mkdir /usr/share/nginx/wordpress/wp-content/mu-plugins
nano /usr/share/nginx/wordpress/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpms_blogid.php

 
Paste this code:

<?php
add_filter( 'wpmu_blogs_columns', 'do_get_id' );
add_action( 'manage_sites_custom_column', 'do_add_columns', 10, 2 );
add_action( 'manage_blogs_custom_column', 'do_add_columns', 10, 2 );

function do_add_columns( $column_name, $blog_id ) {
if ( 'blog_id' === $column_name )
echo $blog_id;
return $column_name;
}

function do_get_id( $columns ) {
$columns['blog_id'] = 'ID';
return $columns;
}

 
Save the file (ctrl+o) and exit (ctrl+x)
Congratulation, you have a WordPress Multi-site